Tuesday, 6 March 2012

Back from MWC#1: The
time is right for mobile biometric security

My feet have just about recovered from the many miles walked
during the recent Mobile World Congress
in Barcelona – I even had to dodge the barricades put up to contain the student
protesters (I counted twenty protestors and a couple of hundred Police) to
congratulate Alan Giles and the team at Fiberlink
after picking up a GSMA
2012 Mobile Award for “Best Enterprise Mobile Solution” for their MaaS360 MDM solution. A very worthy winner.

As a GSMA 2012 judge myself, I was honoured to be chosen to
judge the "Best Technology Product or Solution for Safeguarding and
Empowering Customers". This was won by Cloudmark
for their Mobile Messaging Security Suite.

Global Bilgi for
Turkcell Voice Verification

I was very impressed
by all of the nominees in this category and was delighted that one of the
nominees that made it to the shortlist was from a mobile network operator that
had deployed a biometric security solution that supported mobile devices; Turkcell’s
Global Bilgi for Turkcell Voice
Verification voice biometric service, powered by PerSay’s
VocalPassword technology provided by Nuance Communications. The solution uses a biometric speaker
verification system that verifies a speaker’s identity using acquired voice
samples. Samples of the caller’s voice are converted into voiceprints, or unique
algorithms based on the specific characteristics of the voice that are used to
authenticate and prove identity of Turkcell customers calling into their call
centre. The solution replaces a 4-digit PIN-based authentication solution and
has proved to be very successful with a reported four million enrolled
voiceprints.[1]

Another technology vendor that has developed a very
interesting voice recognition product is the UK-based technology vendor VoiceVault. I was speaking with their
Director of Product Marketing recently, Nik Stanbridge, who was starting to see
a change in the market with “significant opportunities being turned into
contracts”. Both Nik and I agree that we are seeing positive signs of growth in
the mobile biometric security market, largely driven by SMDs becoming the “key
entry points” for much of our personal and business lives. This trend is being
accelerated by mobile voice-based solutions including Apple’s SIRI that
according to Stanbridge, makes “people less reluctant / embarrassed at the
thought of speaking into a mobile device”.

VoiceVault’s solutions are focussed on identity verification
and transaction authorisation for two main use-cases:

On the device itself (phone lock / unlock)

As part of a device-based app’s mechanism for
logging onto a website - a high-security replacement for a password

Mobbeel

Another vendor that was showcasing their mobile biometric
security solutions during MWC was Spanish-based vendor Mobbeel. I have been following their progress
for some time now and was pleased to catch up with Rodrigo Sanchez Gonzalez,
CTO, and Abraham Holgado Garcia, Research and Development Director, on their
stand in the Spanish area of La Fira Courtyard.

Mobbeel are a relatively young company that have become
pioneers in the world of mobile biometric security. Their strength is to use the
standard features of a modern mobile device; touchscreen, camera and speaker,
fast processor, to support a variety of biometric modalities including
signature, iris, facial, hand and voice recognition. Unlike one of the other, much talked about,
mobile technologies, Near Field Communication (NFC), their solutions are not
reliant on an OEM to embed specific hardware, such as a fingerprint sensor.

I really like this company as they are not just developing
ground-breaking technology but developing use-cases and stories to educate the
market. Market education is sometimes extremely useful in emerging technologies
such as this. Take a look at their video channel to
see what I mean.

Fujitsu

Just across the courtyard area where Mobbeel were showcasing
their technology was the Japanese based OEM, Fujitsu that used MWC to launch a
new range of SMDs to the European market. As well as being able to take these devices into the shower
or swimming with you (their waterproof capabilities were ably demonstrated by
an army of suitable wet-weather attired exhibitors) these quad-core powered
mobiles include embedded fingerprint sensors.

Using the same AuthenTec
supplied fingerprint sensors that have been powering NFC-based physical
payments in Japan through mobile network operator NTT DoCoMO, Fujitsu aims to
differentiate its devices from the crowd.

As someone who regularly uses a fingerprint sensor on his
Motorola Atrix 4G (another example of an AuthenTec supplied fingerprint sensor)
to protect a device from unauthorised access I can definitely see the
advantages of such a technology. However, Fujitsu, needs to release APIs and
SDKs into the developer community to enable these devices to support other
authentication and identification features. This will ensure that this
technology becomes a must-have and not a maybe technology.

The time is right for
mobile biometric security

One of my roles as MD of Goode Intelligence is to track
emerging technologies in mobile security and to predict whether these
technologies will succeed and enter the mainstream.

My research into this sector started over one year ago and
resulted in the publication of an analyst report in June 2011, “mobile
phone security – analysis and forecasts 2011-2015”. In the report I
predicted that a biometric groundswell is building for Smart Mobile Devices.
The market is currently slow; but pressure is growing.

My subsequent tracking of this market and the buzz that was
surrounding this technology at this year’s MWC in Barcelona reconfirms my view
that that conditions are ripe for rapid change; for biometrics to move from an
‘interesting concept’ to a 'must have' for all SMDs.